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Alina Simone writes in the NYT that her mother received a ransom note on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.“Your files are encrypted,” it announced. “To get the key to decrypt files you have to pay 500 USD.” If she failed to pay within a week, the price would go up to $1,000. After that, her decryption key would be destroyed and any chance of accessing the 5,726 files on her PC — all of her data would be lost forever. "By the time my mom called to ask for my help, it was already Day 6 and the clock was ticking," writes Simone. "My father had already spent all week trying to convince her that losing six months of files wasn’t the end of the world (she had last backed up her computer in May). It was pointless to argue with her. She had thought through all of her options; she wanted to pay." Simone found that it appears to be technologically impossible for anyone to decrypt your files once CryptoWall 2.0 has locked them and so she eventually helped her mother through the process of making a cash deposit to the Bitcoin “wallet” provided by her ransomers and she was able to decrypt her files. “From what we can tell, they almost always honor what they say because they want word to get around that they’re trustworthy criminals who’ll give you your files back," says Chester Wisniewski.
The peddlers of ransomware are clearly businesspeople who have skillfully tested the market with prices as low as $100 and as high as $800,000, which the city of Detroit refused to pay. They are appropriating all the tools of e-commerce and their operations are part of “a very mature, well-oiled capitalist machine" says Wisniewski. “I think they like the idea they don’t have to pretend they’re not criminals. By using the fact that they’re criminals to scare you, it’s just a lot easier on them.”
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Wednesday January 07 2015, @01:23AM
To some degrees of fanaticism, anything can become a religion.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Wednesday January 07 2015, @03:29AM
Wanna know how I spot the difference, why I came up with FOSSie in the first place? Its the logic hoops.
Take the article we had on Chromebooks recently. I said they are still more restricted than a regular laptop which is why the local Craigslist is full of them for less than $80 whereas any Worst Buy Special with Windows you can wipe and run anything from BSD to WinXP, no restrictions. That is simple, logical, verifiable, and to the point, right? If X can only run Y and Z but Y can run A-Z then X is more restricted than Y, its just common sense.....so what did I get? A Googleite saying "Nuh uh, Chromebooks can run anything a regular laptop can!" and when I asked for a citation, because if that were true I could go grab all those $80 Chromebooks and refurb 'em? He sends me a link to a single article on how to hack a Chromebook PIXEL!! Riiight, because I HAD to be talking about the Pixel, a unit I have better odds of winning Powerball than seeing, right? After all Google isn't selling Chromebooks on price, nope its gotta be luxury!
THIS is how you tell the nutters from the advocates, its the logic hoops. Nobody sane would go "He is talking about Chromebooks selling for $80, he MUST be talking about the $1600 Pixel Chromebook, right?" No different than how the FOSSie when shown all the Linux websites hacked, shown "How to write a Linux virus in 5 easy steps" doesn't go "Ya know, this is a legitimate point, I should change my debate to take this into account" but instead breaks out a dictionary so they can argue that "it doesn't count" because it doesn't meet the first definition in the Oxford dictionary of a virus, never mind the fact the fourth definition clearly says that ALL malware is commonly called virus by the MSM, all that matters is they find a way to back up their preconceived notion! I saw the same thing when OSX got hit by MacDefender, instead of going "Yep its a bug, but here is why I still prefer OSX over Windows and Linux" they broke out the dictionary because all that matters is "Apple doesn't get bugs". Like anybody who just lost their CC to macDefender would care it doesn't fit the classical definition.
THAT is why I came up with FOSSie, because there are FOSS advocates that aren't chocked full o crazy or treat their OS as a religion, a FOSSie? No matter how large and flaming that logic hoop is they'l happily jump through it, as long as it backs up their beliefs,like flat earthers arguing the sat pics are faked or young earthers saying Adam rode on a dino. Oh and if you wanna se what the end stage of FOSSieism is? Go look up Robert Pogson, I've been trying for nearly FOUR YEARS to get him to say Microsoft, or MSFT, or even MS but because he is FOSSied so hard he has Voldemort [tmrepository.com] so all you will EVAR get is "the OS from Redmond" or "M$". I guess they think they will offend St iGNUcious if they say the name of "the enemy" or something. Total batshit dude, total batshit.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.